Airport Manager Bob Hudson said there’s lots of commercial interest in the facility these days. Especially now that it looks like a cross-wind runway will be built.

Hudson said there are three hangars in the works, and an airplane repair shop could be going in soon.

“People were reluctant to come without a cross-winds runway,” he said.

The new runway is a needed addition, Hudson said.

The wind shut down the existing runway from April through May of last year, Hudson said. That was actually the airport’s worst year for wind, he said.

When the new runway is completed, the wind won’t hinder operations nearly as often, he said, because pilots will be able to avoid some of the dangerous effects of gusting winds by taking off and landing from the safest approach possible.

They will be able to either use the existing runway, which goes east and west, or the new runway, which will run north and south. Hudson expects to have planes taking off and landing from a new runway by October, he said.

At a Moriarty City Council Meeting on April 11, Mike Provine of Molzen-Corbin and Associates architectural and engineering firm said the Federal Aviation Administration may approve funding for the new runway some time this week.

“We are hearing good things from funding agencies,” he said.

The runway may cost $7 million to build, with the city paying about 2.5 percent of that cost. The city stands to recoup that money in the gross receipts taxes imposed on the construction, however.

And word of the proposed new runway has already spread, according to Hudson, and is starting to draw pilots to the city.

“Moriarty is a very aviation-friendly town,” Hudson said. “And we don’t have a large population encroaching on the airfield … the town has not grown out to the airport yet.”